


Cold

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Implied Character Death, Light Angst, One-Sided Relationship, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-08 23:56:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/767590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Said blogger had never worked up the gut to admit that Sherlock had looked absurdly beautiful in those moments. Not until now, at least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd, un-britpicked. Basically a short drabble wrought from boredom and illness. My apologies for the travesty you're about to read!

Cold.

It was the first thing to register as his mind came back online after sleep. Drawing the quilt up around his bare shoulders, he opened his eyes only a fraction, quickly rooting out the source of his discomfort. A window, shadowed by curtains just barely pulled apart, was open a crack, having been so since the night prior, whence he had opened it when the stifling heat of his bedsheets had sent him seeking out a solution to his quandary. The temperature had dipped during the night, standing below freezing even after the sun had risen. Now, as the clock on his bedside table read 6:39 am, the room is cool enough to make him shiver as he leaves the warm confines of his bed.

His vision swirls the moment he pushes up onto his feet. From the way his head begins to pulsate the longer he stands, it doesn’t take an idiot to know that he is coming down with something. A cold or influenza, most likely. Yanking an afghan off the end of his bed to wrap around his shoulders, he ambles over to snap the window shut before stumbling downstairs for a piping hot cup of Earl Grey. By the third cup, it is clear that whatever is hitting him is going to hit harder. Still drowsy, head throbbing despite two paracetamol, he retires to the sofa, afghan still wrapped tight around him, nursing the fourth cup of tea. By this point, it doesn’t matter to him whether the caffeine will have him on edge for the rest of the day. He’s just miserable enough already that he can’t find the strength within himself to care. It doesn’t take long for the memories to catch up to him, as his gaze darts about the living-room.

Sherlock’s music stand is still sitting in front of the window, the one he used to peer out of while ‘composing’ ear-splitting pieces dredged up from frustration. On occasion, the great detective’s eyes would slip shut, screeching non-music drifting into to soft bars of Strauss or some other obscure composition the listener could never hope to name. It was as if the final piece of whatever puzzle he had been chipping away at had finally been identified and placed, putting back to rights the mess of the man’s “mind palace”. Sherlock had never appeared more at peace than during those moments, when the grating irritation of an incomplete puzzle gave way to the bliss of a solution. “Obvious,” the man would utter aloud before packing his violin away and dragging his blogger out on some daring undercover investigation or another. Said blogger had never worked up the gut to admit that Sherlock had looked absurdly beautiful in those moments. Not until now, at least.

And with that memory thought of, it seemed that the flood-gates had been opened to countless others. The sofa upon which he was seated was sunken but comfortably worn, testament to the numerous times he had arrived back at 221B from the clinic, Tesco, and other places to find Sherlock laying stock-still, fingertips pressed together beneath his chin, deep in thought. And that hole in the rug, just barely visible to the eye underneath his own chair – remainder of an experiment involving hydrochloric acid that had not ended well nor as expected to with the interference of a rat from another experiment (remains stored in a box underneath the bathroom sink). Then there were the deep gouges in the mantel, the skull as well, and...oh.

Setting his cold tea down on the coffee table, afghan falling from his shoulders, he stalks across to the corner of the room where the pole lamp stamps. Beneath a fallen stack of sheet music, a length of blue silk sticks out. He doesn’t need to pull the rest of it out to know what it is.

He does so anyway.

He had never had the pleasure of owning a dressing gown so fine as the silk ones Sherlock had favoured in life. When not on a case, the man had spent nearly eighty percent of his time in an outfit consisting off worn-enough-to-almost-be-sheer pyjama bottoms, a loose-fitting tee, and one of his numerous silk gowns (the most favoured of which was the steel blue). Running his fingers over the smooth material, he could see why his flatmate had so enjoyed his loose, flowing dressing gowns. Unable to stop himself, moments later he finds himself wearing the gown he had last seen Sherlock wearing only two weeks prior.

Bundled up in silk, John migrates back to the sofa, tea forgotten, and spends the rest of the day fitfully napping, surrounded by the scent of the man he had loved from a distance.


End file.
